Actions

These docs are for version 1.x of Rasa Open Source.

User Guide

NLU

Core

Conversation Design

API Reference

Migrate from (beta)

Reference

Glossary

Actions

Actions are the things your bot runs in response to user input. There are four kinds of actions in Rasa:

Utterance actions: start with utter_ and send a specific message to the user.
Retrieval actions: start with respond_ and send a message selected by a retrieval model.
Custom actions: run arbitrary code and send any number of messages (or none).
Default actions: e.g. action_listen, action_restart, action_default_fallback.

Utterance Actions

To define an utterance action (ActionUtterTemplate), add a response to the domain file that starts with utter_:

responses:
  utter_my_message:
    - "this is what I want my action to say!"

If you use an external NLG service, you don’t need to specify the responses in the domain, but you still need to add the utterance names to the actions list of the domain.

Retrieval Actions

Retrieval actions make it easier to work with a large number of similar intents like chitchat and FAQs.

Custom Actions

An action can run any code you want. Custom actions can turn on the lights, add an event to a calendar, check a user’s bank balance, or anything else you can imagine.

Rasa will call an endpoint you can specify, when a custom action is predicted. This endpoint should be a webserver that reacts to this call, runs the code and optionally returns information to modify the dialogue state.

To specify, your action server use the endpoints.yml:

action_endpoint:
  url: "http://localhost:5055/webhook"

Custom Actions Written in Python

For actions written in python, we have a convenient Rasa SDK which starts this action server for you.

Default Actions

The available default actions are:


`action_listen`	Stop predicting more actions and wait for user input.
`action_restart`	Reset the whole conversation. Can be triggered during a conversation by entering `/restart`.
`action_session_start`	Start a new conversation session.
`action_default_fallback`	Undo the last user message and
utter a message that the bot did not
understand.
`action_deactivate_form`	Deactivate the active form and reset the requested slot.
`action_back`	Undo the last user message.

All actions can be overridden by adding their name to the list in the domain.